Fifth Business (The Deptford Trilogy, #1) 
by 

Robertson Davies

 

BlackOxford's review 

Jul 10, 2017  ·  edit

really liked it

bookshelves: canadian 

Canada behind the gloss

For me Robertson Davies is Canada: its gentleness and its snobbery; its reserve and its smugness; its inherent democratic attitudes and its bourgeois provincialism; its multicultural diversity and subtle ethnic prejudices. It is the US without the fanaticism and England without inherited nobility. It is also much more than either. Davies ability to describe Canada's uniqueness is unparalleled and itself unique. Fifth Business is a sort of representative history of the country from 1910 to 1950 from the point of view of the Ontario elite, roughly the equivalent class of the New York nouveau rich at the turn of the 20th century. Davies ability to sense the peculiar mores and foibles of this now declining culture is remarkable. Few writing in the English language can beat Davies prose. He is as smooth as John Banville and as captivating as Louis Auchincloss.